The answer has been voted to -3, and I after I reviewed it as "Looks good" I was told;

This post has severe quality issues.

It is abusive nonsense, noise, spam, blatantly off-topic or otherwise irredeemable - readers will find it offensive or repulsive rather than helpful. You should delete or recommend deletion when reviewing such posts.

Don't worry, we've already handled this post appropriately - but please take a minute to look it over closely, keeping in mind the guidance shown above.

But I don't agree. This answer is a link to product that will help the questioner. (It's a projector - which is what the user is looking for, never mind that the entire question is off topic, this is a review of the answer not the question.)

Yes, I know it looks like advertising, but I don't believe that it is. And I also noted that the questioner wants to connect to an existing projector, but giving a link to an alternative way of solving the problem is not bad.

At first glance, the answer looks quite poor and seems to be focused on advertising somebody's product. At second glance, the answer is quite poor and barely contains anything but a link to somebody's product.

I support the deletion of this answer, and had I seen it I would have voted to delete it and probably also flagged it. I do believe this is not much more than advertising, and the reply to your review was legitimate.

The link answers the question. What else is there for it to do? Just because it's a commercial site doesn't automatically make it bad. You think it's advertising, I don't. Judging by the voting (this site is brutal: You have to pay in points to ask anything) lots of other people agree with you.
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ArielSep 7 '12 at 22:25

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@Ariel, does the link answer the question? I would not know, because there is no way I would visit yorbay.com, whatever it might be and even behind seven proxies, just to try and validate an answer. At the very least, I would say the answerer should have elaborated a lot more about how exactly the product meets the questioner's requirements better than the other answers proposed.
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Frédéric HamidiSep 7 '12 at 22:30

I did click the link, and it's just a projector in a shopping site. It's not an auction site, and it's a perfectly fine solution to the problem posed by the question. So I guess the problem is the sketchy looking URL? That's really too bad - I take reviewing seriously, and I'm not going to vote to delete something without checking it properly.
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ArielSep 7 '12 at 22:33

The answer is also just a link. Sure, this might be invited by the question asked, but link-only answers are also considered to be bad answers. No matter what valid resource they might lead to. This answer has a whole bunch of flaws as such.
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BartSep 7 '12 at 22:34

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@Ariel, no, not really, the problem is the ratio of actual useful content versus link to shopping site. They're 50/50 in that answer, which is waaay too low on the useful content side. It is very good you want to review fairly, and posting this very question on meta demonstrates the time and effort you're putting into it, and thank you for that, but I honestly don't know how to formulate this better. This answer, in its current state, does not bring anything to a site dedicated to professional and enthusiast programmers.
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Frédéric HamidiSep 7 '12 at 22:39

@FrédéricHamidi "but I honestly don't know how to formulate this better" Lets flip this around then. Assume you want to answer this question properly, and your answer is to get this projector. How would you phrase it? Maybe from how you would answer it I will understand what the problem is.
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ArielSep 7 '12 at 22:43

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@Ariel, sure, take a look at the other answers. Some of them also contain links to somebody's product, but do elaborate on how and why to use it. There's also a software solution that is quite elaborate IMHO. Contrast them to the deleted answer. Also note that none of them were upvoted (the question was not very good to begin with).
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Frédéric HamidiSep 7 '12 at 22:53

I wouldn't answer this. It's off-topic and should be closed. These types of questions typically generate spam, as this one did. Spend enough time reviewing or moderating, and you start to have a sixth sense for these types of posts. ;) This follows the template perfectly for spam. New user with 1 rep - check. Poor English and grammar. Check! Posts unformatted link to shopping site. Check. Doesn't explain anything in the answer. Check. Sounds like a sales pitch. Check. If we were able to look at the email address the guy registered with, it would probably be afdsfs@hotmail.com or something ;)
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jmort253Sep 8 '12 at 0:23